New York air crash causes official alarm - Americas - International Herald Tribune

NEW YORK — U.S. federal aviation officials briefly ordered restrictions on the airspace above New York City after a single-engine plane smashed into a 42- story building.

The crash Wednesday killed the plane's owner, Cory Lidle, a pitcher for the New York Yankees baseball team, and his flight instructor, Tyler Stanger of Walnut, California, the authorities said. An ensuing fire, telecast live worldwide, destroyed several apartments and left a charred smudge on the face of the building. Debris clattered hundreds of feet to the sidewalk.

The federal authorities immediately ordered that all planes over New York City flying below 1,500 feet, or 460 meters, be under air traffic control but soon lifted the restrictions. Governor George Pataki of New York called for the temporary restrictions to be made indefinite.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command scrambled military jets. Some worried they had witnessed another terrorist attack, but officials quickly dismissed that notion.

The plane was flying in a place where many recreational pilots fear to venture. The northern end of the airspace over the East River is a treacherous, narrow corridor often filled with helicopters ferrying tourists, business people and traffic reporters along the edge of Manhattan. Small planes like Lidle's are allowed to fly through the area at low altitude, but several pilots said they did not dare.

The spot where Lidle's plane, a single-engine Cirrus SR20, struck the apartment building is near the end of an uncontrolled corridor near airspace supervised by air traffic controllers at La Guardia Airport. Inside that corridor, small planes and helicopters may fly below 1,100 feet without getting clearance. They assume responsibility for watching out for other aircraft and structures and avoiding them.

There have been several helicopter crashes in Manhattan, including two last year. But it is rare for a small plane to crash into a building.

The SR20 is a relatively fast, four-seat private propeller plane that is popular for its performance and sleek looks. With two sets of controls and two men in the front seats, officials said either Lidle or his instructor could have been flying it.

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The SR20 slammed into the center of the Belaire, a condominium tower that stands just off the East River at 524 East 72nd Street. Thirteen firefighters and four people in the building were injured, officials said, including a woman who had been in an apartment hit squarely by the plane. She escaped the inferno with burns to 15 percent of her body, an official said.

Lidle, a pilot for less than a year who was traded to the Yankees in August, had talked enthusiastically just three days ago about flying to his home in California this week. As he cleaned out his locker at Yankee Stadium on Sunday, a day after the Yankees' postseason hopes fizzled in a loss to the Detroit Tigers, he said that he planned to work on instrument training exercises Wednesday before he left for California, and that his regular instructor was coming in to work with him.

The plane took off from Teterboro Airport in northern New Jersey at about 2:30 p.m., according to a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York said the aircraft circled the Statue of Liberty before heading north up the East River. Radar contact was lost around the Queensboro Bridge. He said it was not clear why the plane veered toward the city, apparently after traveling farther north, and then hit the building on its north side 20 minutes after takeoff.

The plane disintegrated as it hit the building, shaking bricks loose from the facade, and ended up as a smoking hulk on the street.

"The engine with the propeller was two feet inside the window," the official said, adding that much of the rest of the plane had fallen to the street outside.

Flames from the crash burned a woman in the apartment directly hit. Three other people, all elderly, walked down from lower floors and were hospitalized for exhaustion.